Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I stand here as someone who formerly spent 27 years in state education, in high schools and primary schools in Victoria, someone who spent many years in a role as a secondary year level coordinator, who worked with young people year in, year out not only in their classrooms as an English teacher, a drama teacher and a history teacher but also as a coordinator working with young people from year 7 through to year 12 to build in them an aspiration to gain entry into university or, if that was not going to be the case, an aspiration to attend TAFE and to build in them an understanding that we need to be lifelong learners. So it is with absolute pleasure that I rise to speak today on the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment Bill 2018 and to support the amendment moved by the member for Scullin. It was Labor in 2011 that established TEQSA as the national regulator of Australia's higher education system, so I'm happy to speak today on the importance of government support for our education system at all levels but particularly at the university level.

Support of our education system is something that is foreign to the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government, as we have seen across the last five-plus years. The fact that we are only debating this bill now, three years after the recommendations from the review of TEQSA were provided to the government, speaks clearly about this government's attitude to universities and its responsibilities in responding to reviews and ensuring that we have the best system possible. It demonstrates just how much this government doesn't value our higher education system. I'm not surprised, and why should I be when all we have seen from this government is cuts and chaos in this space?

Let me be clear. After the government were elected in 2013, students were placed under attack with the threat of university fee deregulation. Those of us on this side fought the government on that war, and we won in support of young people across the country, joined by those people who were seeking to retrain, seeking higher education or seeking to rejoin education as a way of ensuring that they had a bright economic future. Students are now forced to pay back HELP debts when they earn $45,000 a year. That is only $9,000 more than the minimum wage. We know that debt is a barrier for many students, particularly those from low-income families. It puts more pressure on household budgets at a time when they can least afford it. No-one knows this more than I do from working in Melbourne's western suburbs with kids from working-class families, kids whose parents were struggling to pay the rent every week. Building aspiration in those young people meant confronting their family's fear of debt at a young age. So I know full well how hard people are working on the ground to build that aspiration; to have those conversations with young people; to ensure that they seek a tertiary education; to identify our best and our brightest; to encourage them to talk to their families about the fact that the debt they will take on will be worth it; and to assure them that they have their government's support.

Since this government was elected, we have also seen students turned away by universities because of capped places. This unfairly leaves regional and outer suburban communities like mine worse off. It means that we are not seeing our best and brightest. It means that other determinants are getting in the way of us seeing the best of every young person in our country. Universities have been under attack with various funding cuts, the latest being in the 2018 MYEFO with the slashing of $328.5 million from university research, something that our university sector is speaking loudly on but without effect.

In electorates like mine all over the country, we are seeing youth allowance wait times blowing out. This leaves young people and those waiting to retrain with no support. I have stories in my electorate of people waiting for up to six months, so it's the end of first semester and they're yet to receive a youth allowance payment. What that means in communities like mine, in those families, is that they could be in a situation where that young person chooses to discontinue a university education because the family can't afford to support them while they study. This is heartbreaking—absolutely heartbreaking—and it's under this government's watch that these things are happening. It goes to the very core of what we believe.

As someone who has spent most of their life teaching, I believe that every child can learn if given the right circumstances. What is the message we're sending now? We know intelligence is not defined by postcode or region, but under this government it appears that going to university is determined by postcode or region or by the wealth of your family. The basic support that governments commit to—to support our best and brightest from low socioeconomic areas to go to university—is not being met in that critical first semester, which is when their studies get set up. It is an absolute shame.

In contrast, under previous Labor governments my electorate saw increased numbers of students accessing university. Those numbers have slipped over the past five years, in terms of percentages per capita, on this government's watch. I find that to be absolutely reprehensible, because we know that for our economy we need young people to be as highly skilled as we can allow. We need to be investing in our young people to ensure that Australia continues to be competitive in a global economy. We all know that in this place. We hear member after member on their feet talking about just that, yet we have a government that doesn't back that in with the legislation required and with the support required. Perhaps a review of why Centrelink can't manage to process youth allowance applications in a timely manner would allow young people in any community to pursue their dreams.

Unfortunately, it is not just the higher education sector that this government has cut and slashed. We've seen vocational education and training cuts, as well as 2.5 million public school students in this country being left worse off by its failure to properly fund public education. This government has cut more than $3 billion from TAFE skills and apprenticeships since being elected. This clearly demonstrates that they do not value vocational education and skills. When it comes to our public schools, almost nine in 10 public schools will never get to their fair funding level because of the Prime Minister's cuts. You have to extrapolate that to what that means in our university sector and what that means in our economy. On this side of the chamber, we understand that education, at all levels, is the key to a stronger society and the key to future prosperity.

In contrast to this government, a Shorten Labor government, if elected, will properly fund our universities with guaranteed three-year funding agreements. We will uncap university places so that 200,000 more Australians will have the opportunity of a university education over the next decade. We will invest in university research and infrastructure with our $300 million university future fund. We will provide more support for disadvantaged and underrepresented students to acquire the confidence and skills they need to get into university, with our $174 million equity and pathways funding.

We will invest across the whole education system by introducing universal early education for three- and four-year-olds and by investing $14.1 billion extra into the public schools across our nation, who educate two out of three Australian children. We will waive up-front fees for 100,000 students to attend TAFE. We will invest $100 million in modernising TAFE facilities around the country. We will be ensuring one in every 10 jobs in Commonwealth priority projects are filled by Australian apprentices. Labor has a plan for the entirety of education across this country. We will provide 10,000 pre-apprenticeships for young people who want to learn a trade. We will provide 20,000 adult apprenticeship places. We will establish an apprenticeship advocate to ensure Australia has an excellent, high-quality and inclusive apprentice system.

On top of that, we will return the workforce to Centrelink so that we can get over some of these processing issues that this government has been ignoring. When you draw all of these pieces together, what we see from this government is not just a lack of care. It's not just a lack of interest. If you grow up in my electorate and you're from a low socioeconomic area, what you perceive is a government that doesn't want you to be educated; a government that doesn't want to see you strive to be your best. It's a very sad state of affairs.

On this side of the parliament, Labor have committed to a national inquiry into post-secondary education. It's an inquiry that would look at the needs in this country and the broad, post-secondary space with TAFE and university. Importantly, it would look at them separately, but it would also look at the way they work together and the way they need to be supported by government to ensure that we're getting the best and the brightest in the right places—doing the right things and providing them with the level of support that they need.

I cannot get past the fact that it has taken this government three years to respond to the review conducted. It has taken them three years to draft a piece of legislation and pay attention to the recommendations made. They have been slow to act and, when they act, they act in limited ways. In contrast, I stand here proudly as a member of the Labor Party and proudly as the member for Lalor, because I know the people on this side of the chamber will act in the best interests of all Australians. I also know they'll take particular care of the students who are being raised in my electorate. They want all children in Australian schools to aspire to be their best. We want to see Australians leading in every industry. We want to see Australians applying themselves. We want to see them aspiring to high education levels. We want to see them applying themselves. And we want to see a government that will support our young people and those retraining—all people engaging in lifelong learning. We want to see a government that's prepared to support the industries that provide the education and support young people across their lifetime, from kindergarten all the way through to their PhDs.

I'd like to thank the member for Scullin for moving the important amendments that give us the opportunity to speak on this bill and support the government's recommendations—slow to act as they are. We will support the bill, but we speak strongly about the amendments that were put forward by the member for Scullin.

See this speech in context